“new prog song” and other musics…

hello again and welcome everyone to another rambling “update” of sorts.

 

i just wanted to let you all know, that I have been working on a follow-up piece to my last prog epic, “the complete unknown“, a new piece of prog that currently bears the working title of “new prog song”, and I think you can see why it’s a “working” title!

it’s currently running about six or seven minutes in sketch form, with the first three minutes already consolidated into a lovely working/early mix, so, three minutes done or mostly done, and an unknown number more minutes to go…

I decided to work in a different way this time around, last time, for “the complete unknown“, I worked the song in the traditional manner:

drums

bass

keyboards

organ

mellotron

acoustic guitars

lead guitars

so saving the best for last!  Imagine, I worked for months on the drums, bass and keyboards, and finally, got to the best and most fun part, adding lead guitars and other bits of guitar and ebow guitars, too.

but the problem with that approach, means that you are locked in to what notes and chords, the bass, the keys, the organs and mellotrons have played.  In some ways, that maybe reduces your options for lead guitar playing. I’m not saying that was a bad approach, because in that case, it produced a pretty cool 17 minutes of modern day progressive rock, in the form of “the complete unknown”.

this time, I am committed to doing things differently.  previously, the bass often dictated what the guitars must do.  so this time, I have changed up the order of recording instruments:

drums

rhythm guitars

melody or placeholder clean lead guitar melodies

bass guitar (only once guitars are finalised)

keyboards (only once guitars and basses are finalised)

more lead guitars / ebow guitars (if necessary)

 

so with this method, the chords and notes that guitars play, dictate the form of the song, and basses are added once most drums/guitars are in place.  in practice, this has actually meant I can, and have been, moving whole slabs of drums about within the song, rearranging the basic form…as long as it’s just drums and guitar, I can mess about with the placement of those without harm.

doubtless, at some point, I will work in the traditional way again, drums, bass, keys, guitars, but this new method is actually working just as well or better so far.  and, where I can, where I feel 1000% happy with the drums/guitars, I can add my beloved Rickenbacker bass samples in, and I’m finding that works better than doing the bass first.  And in my nearly completed first three minutes, a beautiful, high pitched, climbing kind of Chris Squire or Todd Rundgren-like melodic bass line appeared, and with a bit of editing, is going to turn out remarkably well.

I wanted the guitars to lead everything, and in this case, I had a couple of nice guitar parts recorded, using a fabulous patch that I cooked up across my two H9s, and that in turn, inspired me to play the beautiful bass part – so that’s proof positive: the new method is working.

a lot of the time for me, its cool guitar parts, that can inspire other instrumental parts, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had guitar at the centre of the composing process. and while for “the complete unknown” I was still able to bring out strong melodic, lead and ebow guitars, based on previously recorded bass and keyboard parts,this time, it’s the other way around, and I will possibly go so far as to record some sections of guitar drumless, even, and then drop drums behind them.  Maybe. But the way it’s working right now, is absolutely cool with me.  The first three minutes sound pretty good already, my rough mix confirms that, but I am excited about the new possibilities that working in this new, guitar-centric way, will bring – to my future working methods for one, but more specifically, what it can bring to the success of this “new prog song” with the terrible working title :-).

the other nice thing is spending time setting up high quality guitar tones with the H9s and the Eventide stomps, too, and getting a carefully crafted guitar tone recorded in situ, meaning no need to add much in the way of effects or treatments, do re-amping, etc., if anything, during arrangement and mixing – your best tone is already recorded and already in place – done and done. brilliant!!

having your guitar sounding awesome, really makes playing your guitar parts a lot more enjoyable, and also helps on the inspiration side.  it was really a combination of the tone I’d dialled in for my rhythm guitar sound, as well as the opening sequences / chord progressions, that later in the same session, inspired me to play that awesome melodic bass line. so guitars are causing a lot of good in this session, which tells me, that very possibly, more generally when I am recording, I should let guitars dictate what happens to a song’s form, more so than bass lines or keyboards chords and notes.

a new tradition has been born, I think.  I will certainly use this technique again, now that I’m doing it this way now for this new track – why not?

meanwhile, outwith the studio environment, I’ve continued to work on portable devices, I recently moved my mobile base of operations from my tablet to my tablet-like phone, and I’ve just recently completed four pieces of music using the “Nanostudio” application, and I am working on another piece, working title “sleep” or more probably “in my sleep” – which is a dark background of drums and bass, with a terrifying virtual “vocal” made up of truly alien, frightening me synth “phrases” which take the place of a traditional “vocal” – making a truly unique and compelling piece of music, I would venture to say that this track may be the most intense that I’ve ever produced using Nanostudio…and I’ve been working with Nanostudio for a few years now.

this song is to me, the sound of terrifying aliens brainwashing you, in their native tongue, as you lay sleeping, unaware of their intrusion.  something I am quite sure, I don’t actually want to happen to me! at all. ever 🙂

so I can’t wait to download and then master, this new and most unusual Nanostudio piece, it surprised me when it first appeared, but it’s really grown on me, and I’m very much enjoying trying to perfect it…the “vocal” is still terrifying even though I am used to it from much listening…I can’t wait for you to hear this one.

a second Nanostudio piece, with the unlikely working title of “worm patrol” may also be complete, it contains just two elements, a drum track, and a single live take / four minute synth part that is just so awesome, that I might call it, and decide “it’s done now” although I’m not yet certain…it appeared so quickly, and in such complete form, that it took me by surprise, so, more listening is required.

I hope to have both “in my sleep” and “worm patrol” mastered and finalised, and then eventually added to the Nanostudio Eternal Album within the next few weeks.

i have also, with some reluctance, begun working on the video backlog.  I started out, by correcting an error I made; I uploaded an application video, to the pureambientHD channel, which is supposed to be all guitar based music.  of course, probably because it was in the wrong place, it immediately got the attention of the disquiet site, who wrote a really nice article about it.  almost six hundred hits in a day or two later, the video is a big success…

l’m glad that the video ended up in the “wrong” place, because it then came to the attention of unlike noise, and the very complimentary things they said about the piece, “formation of the universe”, well, I’m always pleased when a piece of my music provokes a positive reaction – I’m really pleased about the attention the video is getting.

so what I’ve done, rather than remove it, and then put it up where it really belongs, over on the applicationHD channel, I just left it be, on the pureambientHD channel – where it now sits happily amongst over a hundred guitar videos.  oh well, you can’t win them all…

I then put it up onto the applicationHD channel, where it should have gone all along, meaning it’s now on TWO channels, the wrong one (pureambientHD) and the right one (applicationHD), along with its successor video, which was the second of two videos featuring the remarkable “borderlands granular” application, entitled “swirling galaxies roaming aimlessly”…

…while back on pureambientHD, I forged ahead as if nothing had happened, and uploaded “revolution III” the next in a series of looping videos, so, order is restored, and we have new music in borderlands, in the form of two borderlands videos, as well as the many new Nanostudio pieces recently uploaded , plus a more traditional guitar performance with loops and ebow guitar looping and soloing in the form of “revolution III”…

the first part of 2016 has been difficult for me, illness laid me out for about eight weeks, so it’s only been more recently, that I can apply myself to getting a few of these projects done and get the results uploaded, whether it be to my bandcamp Eterbal Albums or to one of my many YouTube channels…I want to get the music out there.

i  very pleased that despite thus long illness and slow recovery, that I did manage to upload no less than four new Nanostudio tracks, as well as three videos, and various other bits and pieces that got done during this difficult period.  With the advent of SONAR Platinum and the upgrade to the H9 system, recording guitar is now easier than ever before, so it’s my hope that both my creativity and my pace of work, will return to a state where there are more outputs, more often – we shall see how it goes.

I’d like to thank you for sticking with me, too, when my musical output dips, usually, when you don’t hear from me, it does mean I am working to bring new music to you, some of which can be and is created quickly, as the “borderlands” videos were, whilst others, such as a long-term project like “new prog song” we may not see the fruits of for many months still. “the complete unknown” ended up taking at least nine months to complete – sometimes, appreciable amounts of patience are necessary – and I get as frustrated as anyone if there is a drop in productivity.  I appreciate your patience in waiting for new material, and I assure you, that somewhere, if not in the studio, then on a mobile device, if not on my mobile device…always,always in my brain…I am working on two or three new songs all at once, which will then consequently, appear in one form or the other at some point in the weeks and months following their completion.

all in good time, as they say – although it’s never quite been made clear, who “they” are lol 🙂

 

20160529  – a very quick update:  a full day working on “new prog song”, and things have changed since I wrote the above (since yesterday, that is).  the song is now 11:27; it now has two beautiful, solo ebow guitar sections, which utilise the new “SpaceTime” algorithm which is newly available in the Eventide H9 Harmonisers – and “SpaceTime” has some of the most beautiful sounds for guitar I have ever heard, and it’s very exciting indeed to be able to utilise in this song – hot off the press, as it were – I installed it this morning.

so ebows with beautiful “SpaceTime” sounds have been added, and then, a hopefully-early-Steve-Howe jazz guitar solo (something I’ve never attempted before in a recording) with just drums for accompaniment – I’ve learned the solo, but I have yet to play a convincingly “good enough” version of it.  We shall see how that goes.

other bits of sitar have been added in certain places, as well as a pair of bluesy riff, one with a beautiful delay, the other, without, that fades in during the second of the two ambient, ethereal ebow sections.

 

 

so – it’s coming along nicely now, in other words 🙂

 

D.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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studio diary 20150315 – or, that was then…this is NOW

today I had the uncanny realisation, that I am about to embark on the creation of my 18th “eternal album”, which is a large series of recent recordings featuring mainly apple iPad music applications, along with the odd PC music program or “generic eternals” such as the “classical” album.

that in itself is no more significant than the fact that I launched the 17th one today, “music for apps: thesys – an eternal album” and while this album focusses on the fantastic “thesys” application from sugar bytes,  I am already planning the next (which is set to feature the absolutely remarkable app “SECTOR” from Kymatica – which involves one of my favourite developers, Jonatan Liljedahl – inventor of audioshare, and the AUFX series of awesome effects apps).

I did some pre-planning last night, and I could see that I had sufficient material for at least two new albums in the series almost immediately – and I’ve been a bit remiss this year, waiting until March to release the first eternal album of the year – of 2015 – but – hey, I’ve been busy. 🙂

 

what is significant about the fact that I am about to release my 18th album in the “music for…” or “eternal album series”, is this:

prior to the world of ios applications, I used to make “normal” albums ( from the mid 1980s till about 2011, when I got my first ipad…)  – so, you would record music, work on songs, mix and master those songs, and after x amount of time, usually, months, sometimes, years, you would release another finished album of music.  that’s how it always worked – until ios applications came along.  so the compile, wait, compile, wait, compile, wait some more, way of making albums, gradually gave way to a new way – a single album, dedicated to one instrument, app, software or even genre, where there is no limit on tracks, and I basically just keep adding tracks to each one of these “eternal albums” –  forever. so in 20 years’ time – I could have a very, very large number of tracks up there 🙂 on a broad variety of topic-based albums.

so – in the period between 1992, which is the year that my first album proper came out (“voices from the desert”) and 2012, which is the year my “last” “normal album”, “gone native”, came out – so, in 20 years, give or take – I had released 18 “normal albums” during this time – or, I should say, 18 normal “dave stafford” albums – I am not counting bands or collaborations here. that would have probably put the total count for the 1992 -2012 period to “over 30” – but I am focussing solely on my “solo” albums now.

however, more recently, and, overlapping the end of that period slightly, I realised tonight that as I am planning my 18th eternal album album right now, that this means, that I have done exactly the same number of applications-based, or pc-based / generic, albums in the “music for…” series, in just over three years, that it took me to make 18 “normal albums” in !!

 

that is – remarkable.  and difficult to believe, too.

but – it’s real.  I started out working with apps in about December, 2011, and of course, have worked with them ever since (in some ways, it feels like I am just getting started!!) so that means through 2012, 13 and 14 – and here we are, now, in March 2015 – so actually, approaching 3 and 1/2 years in total.

twenty years – to make 18 Dave Stafford albums in the traditional way.  Then, a mere three and a half years, to make the NEXT 18 Dave Stafford albums – in the “eternal album” way.

 

that is simply – astonishing.  oh, how I wish I had thought of the “eternal album” concept back in the late 80s, when I started recording in earnest, as an adult, and as a looper.  just imagine the one, massive “music for loopers” album I would have compiled by now – featuring 246 looped or live improvs played with guitar, ebow and looper, over twenty years.  and, another similar one for rock and prog works…and so on.

instead, I worked the way we all worked, we would not release anything until we had the whole album, built painstakingly one track at a time – “in the can” – even if that took three or four YEARS !  You just kept going, until you had “enough” songs, to make a decent length record, or, until you had the right songs for the album concept you had. it was quite a realisation, though, that, thanks to the “eternal album” concept, and thanks to advances in recording techniques and processes (no more tape recorders for me!) that I was able to mirror my first 20 years’ output, in just 3.5 years, using these new tools to my distinct advantage.

I would stress, too, that it’s not just that things took longer back then, or that it’s more time consuming when you are working with tape machines than in a purely digital environment, and so on – it’s also because, the tablet itself, in my case, the apple iPad – has radically, and unalterably, changed the way musicians work.  if you ask me, it’s revolutionised the way we work. everything is designed for speed, and ease of use.  everything can be done quicker, and usually easier, than in a real studio.

so the ipad, the tablet, the way that some of these absolutely, practically magical applications work…that just changed everything – and that is why I was able to produce 18 albums, with probably, more tracks than my previous 18 albums, in such an incredibly short span of time – 3.5 years.  that’s something approaching six full length albums each year – which, back in the day, would have been not only a prohibitive schedule to maintain, but also, a punishing one.  No one would “try” to make six albums in one year – it was unheard of.  OK, maybe two or three albums per year, at a stretch, maybe, in pop’s heyday, or at the beginnings of rock music – but generally, established patterns of record production mixed with touring, were established and pretty much, followed, by all bands and artists.

then, in 1967, the Beatles actually slowed down this process, by taking an unheard-of six months to complete “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. and for a while anyway, from then on, bands would compete to see how long it could take them to make one record, in the same way they competed for the “biggest crowd” or the “loudest concert in history” or whatever silly, prideful contests went on during the worst of rock’s excesses – whenever you consider that period to be (1980s, anyone?) 😉

 

of course, you do tend to work more quickly with applications, in most cases.  There are exceptions, and certain pieces just require a little more time.  But nowadays, even if it takes me, say, six weeks to finish a concerto in three long movements – the MOMENT it is finished, I can load it up to the “classical” album to join other tracks in the classical genre.

so the new system is working really, really well – for a number of reasons, and I can’t really get my head around the idea of making 36 Dave Stafford albums across 23 years – with the first 18 taking up the first 20 years, and the second 18 taking up a little more than the remaining three years!!! that is just – really stunning.  something to think about, I suppose.

and of course, at this rate, it won’t be long before the “eternal album” series exceeds the pre-2011 “normal albums” in numbers, and I cannot imagine how many albums, not to mention, how many tracks, these 17 soon to be 18 eternal albums will have at the end of THEIR first 20 years – a staggering amount, even assuming that my output will slow somewhat, as I grow older 🙂

track wise, I am not sure how it rates, I would have to do some manual counting, but I would guess that it’s probably a case where there are nearly as many “eternal album” tracks, or maybe more, than the original 18 albums would bear – because back then, tradition said put 12 or 14 tracks on an album, and of course, I would ignore tradition, I had one double album, “other memory / sand island” that had a whopping 33 tracks; while other “normal albums” maybe only featured seven or eight lengthy pieces – and EPs, of course, which I’ve counted as “albums” – might be as short as four tracks.

so I would bet that the track count of the “eternal album” HAS already exceeded that of the original “normal” albums.

I will actually be able to find out over the coming weeks, I’ve begun work on a thorough updating of the discography on the old pureambient website, I plan to pair it up fully with bandcamp, which has all of the albums, old and new, up there – so I will get full counts as soon as I expand the track details and so on, I will have a more concise resource that I can “count tracks” from much more easily.

however, please do not hold your breath, to include more useful information, I’ve had to alter the format of the discography entries slightly, which means an extensive, laborious re-write – but, I really want to do this, for one reason, so there will be a one-stop resource for information about each of the albums, old or recent, for another because it appeals to my own internal sense of order :-).

I do have an interest in statistical information, I can’t really help it, so things like this fascinate me, but it’s a really interesting comment on the speed of life, too – now, I have tools that I can use, to VERY, VERY quickly, build music of real complexity and beauty, on a tablet device (that’s where the magic comes in, I reckon – anywhere and everywhere, I can work on music – with dozens of amazing, powerful music-making tools – incredible!!!), which I can also use to make high quality art work, and then the music can be uploaded to bandcamp, instead of being made available on media as it used to be – it all happens so incredibly quickly now, it’s no wonder that I was forced to invent the “eternal album”, just to deal with a situation where suddenly, after 20 years of slow and steady music production; the ios music apps suddenly turned me into the most prolific musician on the globe – and I had to do something about it if I was to even be able to process the ios music I was creating!

what I did, of course, is invent the “eternal album”.

it took a while to get it all working, but in a very short time, for example, I was able to upload no less than 61 tracks to the album “music for apps: mixtikl – an eternal album” – and that right there, is the equivalent of five or six normal albums – produced in perhaps, six months at the most – astonishing!  so everything is…very much faster, there are no more endless delays waiting for the drummer to set up, or dealing with instrument problems (although, I do still get those, since I DO still use real instruments, and I do plan on making at least a few more “normal” albums of guitar music over the next few years – so please, watch this space!).

music just took longer back then, you had all hardware devices, so to do looping – you needed a LOT of gear.  And a nice rack mount to put it all in.  with a nice digital reverb in it.

now – all of those rack mount devices, exist not just on your computer, where all your recording takes place, too, but also – on your bloody tablet device as well ! and that is a downright miracle – multi-track studio apps like auria, sophisticated effects units like effectrix and turnado, begin to rival the quality of that expensive hardware that now sits in a corner in the studio, rarely if ever used any more, which is really sad, so I continue to make the time to use both – because as much as I love and fully embrace the music / ios technology – I still have a huge love for real guitars, basses, keyboards and drums – real instruments, recorded the old fashioned way – that still has a lot to be said for it!

 

sure, for playing guitar, I still use a LOT of hardware, especially, “loopers”, but more and more, any processing, any effects – are almost easier to apply using your PC, or even your tablet – which to someone from my generation, who grew up with electric guitars and amps, where basically, it was all about the hardware – hardware was the only option in 1971, when I started playing electric guitar for the second time, in earnest, when I was in my first few “garage bands” – is almost incomprehensible.  yet – it be.  it definitely be !!

I was really quite taken with this revelation, then, about just how much has changed.  but it’s today’s young musician that can benefit the most from all of this amazing technology, bypassing the difficult skills of learning to actually play the guitar, bass, drums or keyboards, but instead, in their bedrooms, using technology – to replicate it – and, much, much faster than we could ever do it back in the 1970s with hardware.

sure, they won’t have some of the hard-won skills that those of us who grew up in my generation will have, but, they will have the advantage of the “quicker, better, faster”, etc. – technology – and I hope we hear some amazing music being created by bands that, for example, have five members who all play the iPad.  how fun would that be!

things have changed, and today’s music making person, has a huge range of devices, software for PCs, and apps for tablets and phones, none of which we had back in 1970.  I think that this unavoidable fact has both positives, and negatives, and I can only hope that the former outweighs the latter – because the danger is, that we get too many folk who have no musical talent, “playing” the iPad, and finding limited success – because of the mediocre skill levels that CAN be used to operate some of the simpler music apps – we will, unavoidably, have an even larger stack of not-so-good “electronic musicians” to wade through than we did five years ago – but, at the same time, there are still a fairly large number of “traditional musicians” around – so, I am hoping for a balance – and I think there is merit to both types of musician – the traditional such as myself, the electronic, and, hybrids – such as, myself again – because I absolutely love playing with ios music applications, very nearly almost as much as I love playing my Gibson SG – so, for me, it’s win, win – and win.

 

have fun – until next time –

 

 

peace and love,

 

dave at pureambient